


Where the Light Begins

by Starbird



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Missions, Original Character(s), Questioning Why, Rating to Change, Rebelcaptain - Freeform, Sharing a Bed, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Survival, The Empire Sucks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 04:51:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12101106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starbird/pseuds/Starbird
Summary: Jyn and Cassian find themselves unexpectedly saved by Jyn’s kyber crystal and still alive after the Death Star fires on Scarif. With no immediate means of getting off-planet, they have to find a way to survive and get back to the Alliance, while working through the trauma of the battle and their shocking survival. When Jyn finds a fallen data disk from the destroyed Citadel Tower, she hangs onto it in case it might be important.Once back at Yavin Base, Jyn and Cassian are sent on a new mission to follow up on the contents of the data disk. (More to come.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you’ve read my [Jyn and Cassian Survived Conspiracy Theory Meta,](https://thestarbirdfromtheashes.tumblr.com/post/165317245744/jyn-and-cassian-survived-conspiracy-theory-meta) you know I have a number of thoughts regarding how Lucasfilm could bring both of them back if they wanted to. This is my take on what that might look like (only with an upcoming Explicit rating, because of course). Obviously, I’m not saying I have the creative genius of the Star Wars brand, or anything like that, but I just wanted to try my hand at a really serious piece where only Jyn and Cassian survive with some ideas that maybe could, conceivably, happen. Plot and therefore summary might change as I figure this out. There will also (have to) be some OCs, because Lucasfilm would have to make some new ones up if they did another movie. I will do my best to make these characters interesting. I’m not sure how far I’ll get, because this is a lot more challenging than my other serious piece, [“Then,”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10922973/chapters/24294072) but I will certainly try.

_Scarif_

_O BBY_

 

The roar of the oncoming tsunami was deafening, the white light blinding, the wind strong enough that Jyn Erso dug her knees into the sand of the beach to keep her balance. Her eyes were shut – she didn’t need to see death coming at her – and she clung to Cassian Andor as she awaited the end. His fingers dug into her back, gripping almost painfully hard. The kyber crystal burned on her chest. She focused on these things, focused on the peace in her mind, and she waited.

            The wave hit like the hardest punch or kick Jyn had ever taken, and the water was scalding hot. The force of it was enough to rip her body limb from limb, but somehow, she stayed kneeling. She expected instant death and when she didn’t feel pain, and instead saw only orange light behind her eyelids, assumed she had crossed over. A high-pitched noise started to sound in her ears, a sound like metal vibrating and ringing, or someone wetting a fingertip and circling it around the rim of a glass, and it built until Jyn cried out and released Cassian, hunching over and clapping her hands to her ears.

            Just when she thought her head would surely split open, the sound began to decrease. Jyn waited until it was a low hum, her hands still over her ears, chest heaving, before she opened her eyes.

            Jyn blinked against the bright orange light. It blended into white, and she couldn’t see anything else. Putting one hand on her knee, she stood up.

            She turned around in a circle. The same view met her to every side. Cassian wasn’t there, until she made the full circuit and looked for him. He was sitting back on his heels, silent. Jyn wasn’t sure she could speak herself.

            Her two steps felt sluggish as she walked to him. Their eyes met. Jyn felt sure at this point that she _couldn’t_ use her voice. She nodded at him, and he reached his arm out. Jyn bent, wrapped her hands around his forearm, and hauled him up. He stumbled, but…he stood. On his own. He looked at Jyn in shock, and that was when she realized she didn’t feel any pain from her injuries, either.

            Jyn reached her hand up to him, her lips pressing together. They were dead. It wasn’t unexpected, and she had made peace with it when she was on the beach, but seeing Cassian here, wherever they were, made her heart ache just a little. A lost chance, a lost friendship. Maybe something more.

            Cassian met her hand with his, and he interlaced his fingers with hers. She stepped up to him, pressing her palm closer to his. She still had her half-gloves on. She hadn’t thought to take them off, before the end. On the beach, she’d taken his hand, but she’d only felt half of it. The other half had been through leather. There hadn’t been the time, of course, but she felt regret now. If this was what the afterlife was, why did it _hurt_?

            His eyes were on her. The same look, the one from the turbolift.

            A sound started up again, another tone, low and clear. Cassian and Jyn looked toward the source of the sound, their hands dropping from one another. Together, they walked over, until Jyn could begin to make out lines in front of her. Planes. Cut planes. They got closer, until they were at a smooth, slanted wall.

            Jyn stretched her arm out and pressed her hand against the surface. It was then that she realized she couldn’t feel the familiar weight of the kyber crystal around her neck. Her hands dug into her shirt, and when she pulled the chain out –

            All that was there was the piece of metal the crystal had been fitted into in order to hang it onto the chain. The crystal itself was gone.

            A crack appeared in the wall. Jyn watched as it snaked up further, then widened. She took a step back, then another, then turned and fled with Cassian as the crack widened so far the walls were sure to come crashing down on them. Another roar, different from the one from the tsunami, filled her ears. The floor shook violently beneath their feet, and Jyn lost her footing, flying forward and hitting hard.

            Her fingers clenched handfuls of wet sand. Her chin sank down into it. Her clothes were wet, her soaking hair plastered to her face. She opened her eyes, blinking again, this time in bright sunlight. A warm, pleasant breeze blew, but all around her lay chunks of debris, scattered across the sand like the stars in the sky. Broken metal, data tapes, bark and leaves.

            There were no bodies.

            A wave rushed up behind Jyn and washed over her, salt water filling her nose and mouth. It quickly receded, and she got up on all fours, gagging and spitting out water. She swiped her wrist across her eyes, and she stood up and looked down the shoreline. There was an immobile heap about twenty yards away, and she ran as fast as she could toward Cassian. Her legs didn’t want to move, though, almost as if they were as waterlogged as the rest of her.

            “Cassian.” She dropped down beside him. He lay on his side, eyes closed, unresponsive, and she gently shook his shoulder. “Cassian.” She shook his shoulder harder this time, but he didn’t stir. _“Cassian!”_ Jyn shook him again, _hard_ , but still, he didn’t wake. Another wave was coming, and she hooked her arms under his shoulders and dragged him back onto dry sand, out of the water’s way. Kneeling down next to him again, she felt quickly for a pulse she couldn’t find. “No. No, no. Don’t do this. Don’t do this now. Not now.”

            Jyn stood up and turned away, fists clenched, breathing quickly in and out through her nose. She didn’t know what had happened, how they had been saved from the Death Star’s superlaser, but somehow, someway, they had, and they had come back to Scarif’s beach. For her to have died, to have seen him whole and alive again wherever they had gone, and then for just her to come back, to see him _dead_ , was… _cruel_.

            She refused to accept it. Everyone else was dead; she knew that. But this…this she _refused_.  She spun around to him again, weak legs collapsing, and pressed her fingers against his neck once more. There, just barely under her fingertips, was a little leap.

            A pulse.

            “Come on,” she whispered, and passed her hand from his forehead down his cheek to his chin. “Come on. It’s Jyn. Come back.”

            With a loud cough, he suddenly woke and turned over, spitting out seawater. Jyn thumped him a few times between his shoulder blades to dislodge any more, and he took a minute to recover his breath.

            Then he looked up at her, still breathing hard. Like her, he was soaking wet. “What happened?” he asked in hoarse voice.

            Jyn mustered up as much of a smile as she could. “We survived.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn and Cassian start figuring out how to survive on Scarif.

Jyn didn’t know how long they sat there, staring out across the water. She didn’t know what time of the day it was here, or how many hours there were in Scarif’s day. It didn’t matter. They just sat. They just rested.

“Are you still hurt?” Jyn had asked him when they’d first sat down. He’d just shaken his head. He hadn’t looked at her. But he had reached over, taken her hand off her knee, and held it.

She hadn’t let go yet.

“We need to find food and water,” Cassian finally said. “Shelter for the night.”

“I think everything here is gone,” Jyn said. “That tsunami will have wiped everything out.”

Cassian got to his feet, hand sliding out of Jyn’s. “We’ll check the wreckage. The base had to have a mess hall. We’ll see if we can find food in a cooler. Build shelter out of some of this debris, or try to find one large piece.” He gestured up ahead of him as he began walking up the beach toward where the Citadel Tower lay in ruins. “Some of these trees are only split, so we can use the wood from them for kindling. Provided some of it is dry.”

Jyn stood and followed him into the mess that was the remnants of the Citadel Tower. Her boots kicked something metallic, and she looked down.

A datatape.

She bent to pick it up. It didn’t have a name, of course, but it might be useful – if they ever got back to the Rebellion.

If they even wanted to.

Cassian was talking. Jyn hooked the tape onto the back of her belt.

_I’ve got it!_

_Climb! You can still broadcast from the tower! Goodbye!_

_Kay!_

_Keep going!_

_Cassian!_

_You, on the other hand, die with the Rebellion._

Jyn flinched away from the memories. She couldn’t know how long it had been since they’d happened, but they still felt so fresh. They already sickened her.

Distantly, she could hear Cassian talking still. Then, he said her name. A question.

She shook her head.

They didn’t speak again until the sun began to set. Both of them focused on getting a haphazard shelter built, stacking solid, stable chunks of building materials one on top of the other; locating food and water; and collecting a supply of dry wood. Jyn had a small knife hidden in her boot that had miraculously stayed put, and that went a long way in helping.

Finally, the sun slipped below the horizon, and it was pitch black except for the fire they’d made. It was absolutely silent, all life within tens of kilometers completely wiped out. Jyn thought about the Death Star, wondering what its next target would be, wondering if the Rebellion would get the plans in time to analyze them and destroy the weapon before it killed anything else.

Neither Jyn nor Cassian talked as the night wore on. There didn’t seem to be anything to say. They just sat on the beach together, looking out across the ocean and up at the stars.

“When was the last time you slept?” Cassian asked.

Jyn turned her head to him. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“Sleep, Jyn. We’re going to need all our strength to get out of this.”

Jyn looked up at the stars again. “I can’t sleep.”

Cassian followed her gaze. “I can’t, either.”

* * *

They both managed to doze off at some point in the wee hours of the morning, Jyn’s head on Cassian’s shoulder and his head on hers. He woke first, and Jyn was only aware he was awake when she felt him ease out from under her and gently lay her down on the sand. She waited a moment, then opened her eyes to see what he was doing. He stood at the opening of their shelter, framed by the early morning light between the blocks and sheets of whatever they could find that would stay together unless a strong wind blew.

_Killer. Murderer. Assassin. Liar. Saboteur. Spy._

_Human._

_Friend._

_We’ve all done terrible things on behalf of the Rebellion._

Jyn propped herself up on her elbow and watched him build the fire back up. The breeze from the ocean blew his hair back from his face, and she thought he’d never looked more tired, more haggard, more worn. Jyn stood, dusted the sand off her pants, and went to him. The sun was low, and a cool breeze blew off the ocean.

“Near dawn,” Jyn commented. Cassian looked over toward the sun.

“Probably right after,” he said, before returning to the fire. “We’ll have to find food and water soon. That’s our priority today.”

Jyn hadn’t asked him to take the lead on their survival, but he seemed to need to – so she let him. While he focused on the stubborn fire, she went further into the wreckage of the Citadel Tower, shoving broken materials to the side and looking in every drawer and cabinet for supplies.

She ignored all the blasters and weaponry. They wouldn’t need them here.

She did, however, find some long-range comms units that Cassian might be able to do something with, though she wasn’t sure of the technicalities of them. Still, she put them in her “save” pile and continued working her way through everything. She heard Cassian’s tread coming up behind her, but she didn’t acknowledge him.

It didn’t seem like she really needed to. Her mere presence was enough for him, and his for her.

“If we can find a power source,” he said after a moment, and Jyn knew he’d seen the comms units, “these might help us.”

#

They did manage to find the mess hall, and a large amount of food and water had remained intact (albeit thrown haphazardly all over the site). They immediately drank and ate their fill and took a long rest before returning to their shelter with their arms full (and briefly discussing the need for a basket). Cassian had also found blankets and sheets in the med bay and brought them back, making up a pallet for them on the sand. Jyn knelt beside it as he tended to the fire again, running her hand along it and noting the care he’d taken with it.

There was only one pallet, and one pillow.

Jyn let out a puff of a sigh. He didn’t expect to get much sleep. He’d be working tirelessly to get them back home; she knew that.

Cassian bent over to enter the shelter and came in. He sat down next to her, and Jyn turned toward him, dropping down onto her heels. He didn’t look directly at her, but more… _at her_. His eyes traced around her face, and his hand came up to touch the healing wounds.

“No pain at all?” he asked. Jyn shook her head. His hand was still by her cheek, fingers just barely brushing her skin.

“No,” she said. “You?”

“No. It doesn’t seem fair, after everything.”

Jyn reached her hand out and touched his knee. “I don’t think ‘fair’ is a word we’ve ever had use for.”

Cassian shook his head. “No.” He trailed his fingers over the blanket, then ran them up to the pillow. “It’s not much, but hopefully it’ll do until we can get back home.” His fingers twisted into the clean white fabric. Jyn was struck by how exhausted he looked, like he hadn’t slept for longer than she hadn’t.

“Maybe you should rest,” she said, and started backing toward the exit. Maybe if she left, he’d actually listen. Wouldn’t put up a fight or feel the need to do _more_. Her mind grabbed onto an idea, something that would surely keep him in the tent for a while. “I need to wash up anyway.”

He didn’t answer, but as Jyn left the shelter, she saw him take his boots off – the Imperial boots he’d borrowed for their infiltration of the Citadel Tower – and stretch out on the pallet.

His eyes immediately slid closed, and Jyn was sure he was asleep in moments.


End file.
